Reporter Is Found Guilty For Refusal to Name Source

By PAM BELLUCK

Published: November 19, 2004

A local television reporter was convicted of criminal contempt on Thursday for refusing to identify the person who leaked him an F.B.I. videotape in 2001 related to an investigation of government corruption in Providence.

Jim Taricani, a longtime investigative reporter for WJAR, an NBC affiliate, faces the possibility of up to six months in jail when he is sentenced on Dec. 9.

Mr. Taricani would be one of only a handful of journalists to go to jail for refusing to identify a source. He is also one of several reporters currently facing court action over their refusal to reveal confidential sources, but he is the only one to go on trial on criminal contempt charges.

''When I became a reporter 30 years ago, I never imagined that I would be put on trial and face the prospect of going to jail simply for doing my job,'' Mr. Taricani said outside the courthouse after Judge Ernest C. Torres, chief judge of the Federal District Court in Providence, pronounced him guilty.

Mr. Taricani, a gray-haired 55-year-old who has won several awards, including four Emmys, added: ''I wish all my sources could be on the record, but when people are afraid, a promise of confidentiality may be the only way to get the information to the public, and in some cases, to protect the well-being of the source. I made a promise to my source, which I intend to keep.''

Mr. Taricani, who had two heart attacks 18 years ago and who received a heart transplant in 1996, said his major concern about going to jail was his health.

The judge said that while he was aware that Mr. Taricani ''requires special care,'' he was also aware that Mr. Taricani ''has continued to live a very active life'' and had ''traveled abroad recently.'' Judge Torres said that there were prison hospitals that had ''successfully managed the needs of heart transplant patients.''

Mr. Taricani was convicted in connection with a long-running federal investigation called Operation Plunderdome, which resulted in the conviction of at least nine city officials, including Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr., who was sentenced to 64 months for racketeering conspiracy.

Mr. Cianci's top aide, Frank E. Corrente, was also convicted on corruption charges, in part for taking a $1,000 bribe from a businessman who was acting as an informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation and was secretly videotaping his transaction with Mr. Corrente.

Someone gave Mr. Taricani a copy of that videotape, and in February 2001, his station broadcast it, prompting Judge Torres to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate who had leaked the tape.

After the prosecutor interviewed 14 people, all of whom denied being the source, Judge Torres last March found Mr. Taricani in civil contempt. When that finding was upheld by an appeals court, Mr. Taricani was fined $1,000 for each day he continued to refuse to name his source.

When Mr. Taricani would not relent, two weeks ago, after he had paid $85,000 -- for which he was reimbursed by his employer -- Judge Torres changed the civil contempt case into a criminal contempt case. On Thursday, the judge was stern and declarative.

''The evidence,'' Judge Torres said ''is clear and overwhelming and undisputed.'' He added, ''the evidence proves beyond a reasonable doubt that he is guilty of criminal contempt.''

Mr. Taricani's lawyers did not say whether they planned an appeal, which would be filed after sentence is passed.

Mr. Taricani's lawyers had argued that he was protected by the First Amendment, and said broadcasting the tape had not affected the defendants' ability to have a fair trial, since its existence had been made public in an indictment months earlier.

Judge Torres said his sentencing decision could be swayed by how Mr. Taricani responded to a question about whether he knew that the person giving him the tape was doing so illegally. Mr. Taricani said he and his lawyers had not yet decided whether to answer that question.

Lucy Dalglish, executive director of The Reporter's Committee for Freedom of the Press, said Mr. Taricani's case was unusual because he faced the jail time not to force him to reveal his source, but as punishment for refusing to do so.

Ms. Dalglish said his case -- along with those involving a Central Intelligence Agency officer, Valerie Plame, and a government nuclear physicist, Wen Ho Lee -- suggest that there is ''an atmosphere where the government is keeping a lot more secrets, the courts are keeping a lot more secrets, and you've got whistleblowers and other people who are within the government seeing something going on who say 'You know, I really feel this information should get out.'''

Much of the attention has centered on the case of Ms. Plame. Government prosecutors have been trying to learn who leaked Ms. Plame's identity to Robert Novak, a syndicated columnist. A reporter for The New York Times, Judith Miller, who never published an article about Ms. Plame, has been held in contempt by a federal judge for refusing to name people she interviewed about the subject.

Matthew Cooper, a White House correspondent for Time magazine who did write about her case, was also held in contempt and threatened with up to 18 months in jail.

Both reporters are appealing the decisions.

As a result of these cases, Senator Christopher Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, hopes to introduce a bill calling for a national shield law, said a spokesman, Marvin Fast. Shield laws, which are on the books in 31 states, protect journalists from having to reveal confidential sources.

If Mr. Taricani is sent to a jail hospital, he may end up in Fort Devens, Mass. -- the same place where Mr. Corrente is serving his sentence of 5 years and three months.

On Thursday, Mr. Taricani, who is well known in Rhode Island, where he is on the boards of the Providence Public Library, a food bank and an organ donor association, was asked how it felt to sit at the defense table in the same courtroom where he had once covered the cases of Mr. Corrente and others.

''It's not a nice seat to sit in,'' Mr. Taricani said. But, he added, when asked about his decision, ''I have no regrets whatsoever.''

Photo: Jim Taricani, with his wife, Laurie White, spoke with reporters in Providence, R.I., yesterday after being found guilty of contempt. (Photo by Victoria Arocho/Associated Press)